Victorian Farm

Those of you from Britain may have already seen this amazing series on BBC, but it is new to me and I'm loving the historical immersion of Victorian Farm!



Three historians band together to live as Victorians for a year an a real Shropshire farm that has been owned by a single family since 1555. The estate has the family house that you see in the picture above, but also a farm that was working until the 1940's.

The three historians, who included Ruth Goodwin, a specialist in Victorian domestic arts, were given one of the "labourer's cottages" on the estate farm in which to live. It had been uninhabited since the 1950's and still had the cast iron coal stove to heat the cottage and on which to cook.



As in other shows of this type, the historians used only the materials authentic to the period for their day-to-day life.



These specialists in the Victorian era used this experienced to elucidate the farm and domestic skill that was needed - the inventiveness and analytic thinking that went into every exercise in problem-solving. For instance, if a wheel broke on the plow, they had to make a new wheel - from scratch. I don't think they were required to live on the farm completely - perhaps it was like a "living history day job". But this was no "survivor-with-a-twist" gimmick. They used, as their daily guide, the 1844 publication that was a staple of farm life in the Victorian era, The Book of the Farm by Henry Stephens. Stephen's manual includes everything needed from growing crops, to nurturing and healing farm animals through to their end as food. It also includes country proverbs of the "red sky at night" variety and ends with these words an exhortation to the young farmer "to maintain in his own person, and in his own sphere, the high, manly, and independent character which for centuries has been acknowledged as the attribute of the British agriculturist".

Ruth Goodwin used as her domestic guide a book from 1861 called The Family Save-All, A Book of Secondary Cookery "supplying excellent dishes for breakfast, luncheon, dinner, and supper from cold and other fragments with Invaluable Hints for economy in the use of every article of household consumption". Whew! What a claim! The Invaluable Hints include "how to grow melons in the open air" and "proper times for brewing beer". And the recipes! The first I happened upon as I casually flipped through this book was on how to cook a sheep's head - whole! Another is "An capital Pie from Goose Giblets".

Here is one:
"A very nice Family Dish from Cold Beef, and Mashed Potatoes and Flour. Bits of meat, when not large enough to be sliced, may be minced, seasoned, and rolled, in a paste of Mashed Potatoes and Flour. Close the rolls, fry them in dripping, and brown before the fire."

Here is another recipe:
"To make a very relishable Soup without Meat Take two carrots, two turnips, and one onion, the trimming of a head of celery, cut into small slices and pieces, and fry with about one half an ounce of butter. Let them be fired until they are quite dry, taking care that they do not burn. When in this state, pour from a pint and a half to a quart of boiling water into the frying-pan on them; then pour all together into a saucepan, and boil for three or four hours, adding water to keep up the quantity, as it boils away. Capital for invalids, or as a warmer at bed-time for people with bad colds."

This book has everything! The index starts with Acorns, Ale, and Ants and ends with Woodcock, Wooden spoons, and Zests (sauces). Both this and the Book of the Farm are available in full, since they are out of copyright, on Google Books.

As I researched this series further, I discovered that there is also one for Edwardian Farm, and Victorian Pharmacy. How fun is that?!

A slight spin-off offers The Victorian Farm experience for Christmas and New Year's with a list of typical activities and recipes!

Mulled Wine for your New Year's Eve celebration:

8 TBSP sugar (some people use honey)
4 cinnamon sticks
2 in piece fresh root ginger, peeled and sliced
small handful cloves, or to taste
1 orange, zest only
3 pints port wine or claret or even Merlot (or 2 bottles, which equal approx. 2 pints + 13 oz.)

Serves 6 people

Place 1.5 cups of water, and the sugar, cinnamon, ginger, cloves and orange zest into a saucepan. Bring the mixture to the boil, then reduce the heat to simmer, stirring regularly, until the mixture has reduced to form a thick syrup, about 15-20 minutes.

Add the port wine or claret and stir well. Increase the temperature until the mixture is piping hot, but not boiling.

Serve immediately in wine glasses. Strain the mixture before serving, if desired.



So I will leave you with this gift of a stroll back in time on this New Year's Eve and simply wish you the best of times on New Year's and in the year ahead!

Boxing Day

My knitted gifts were all well received this Christmas:


Walkies??

I have two favorites that I haven't shown you yet. One is an original pattern that I designed using Blue Moon Fiber Arts Luscious Single Silk in two vibrant colourways. I want to wait to show you that until I have the pattern written up and I've done one more test knit.

But my other favorite is this:



Annis

My version is made from FibroFibers Nightfall Yarn in the Ivy colourway.

Blocking:





As you can see, Nightfall yarn is gradient-dyed, so that the colours go gradually into black...



I assumed that the colour and the black would be blended from one to the other, the way that Blue Moon Fiber Arts colours are when they are mixed - where the two colours touch, a new hue is born. In other words, the mix magic happens. So I thought the lace would go from deepest black to dusk, to a greenish grey, to a light green, to a deep green. But Nightfall yarns are dyed in gradually increasing numbers of black patches, so that the illusion of gradually fading to black is created when you view the garment from a distance, but close up it looks a bit patchy. Not unpleasant by any means, but unexpected:



Annis is a lovely pattern, with lace edges...





I made this one double wide by going through the chart twice. It created almost-noticeable decreases, where in the original size the neck edge would have covered them...



In my version, I think the colour changes helped to disguise the short-row decreased a tiny bit:



This made a light delicate scarf - not wide enough for a true shawl but wide and long enough to drape around the neck twice. I have it on good authority that it is fun to wear: the recipient has had it on since opening it!

Scent of Honey

This handmade ornament is actually honey mixed with cinnamon and other spices. It is filling the whole room with the wonderful scent of spiced honey!

Happy Christmas Eve!

Today is a magical day... for me, it's always been full of excitement and anticipation. On Christmas Eve, I make the Braided Bread the we always have for breakfast on Christmas Day. Presents are wrapped, and just a few are put under the tree. In the evening, the Christmas Pies are made, and one is for supper! One present may be opened before bedtime. At midnight, I walk through all the rooms of the house, with frankincense, clearing the living space for a new year of Life and Light. I've heard that the animals can talk when the clock strikes 12 on Christmas Eve, and when I was little I used to make sure that the cats slept on my bed so that I could hear them talk when midnight came... but I always fell asleep and missed the magical moment!

I rose early today to finish another last-minute gift, these fingerless mitts for dog-walking:



The pattern I used a great, very quick - Garter Stitch Mitts by Ysolda Teague. These took me just a few hours to make. They could be done in a day, if you need a last-minute gift. I rushed home on my lunch hour yesterday to block them, so they'd be ready today, but they can be given without blocking if you're in a pinch. I've made this pattern before, and it's always well received. They fit great, are adaptable to so many sizes and many different weights of yarn. The last time I made them, I used fingering weight sock yarn.



This time, I used Swans Island worsted weight with a size 8 needle. They turned out man-sized and nice and warm for those early-morning dog-walking jaunts.



The cuffs are long (which I love because they're warmer) and if they were for me, I might wear them turned up:



As you can see, I used suede slipper patches for a palm. This is important with dog-walking gloves because the dog's lead is constantly rubbing against your palm - especially the dogs we walk - they love to run and play in the snow!

Now I am planning my new year knits. My friend Mette in Denmark sent me a most wonderful gift: a book of traditional museum patterns for embroidery, beaded crochet, or stranded knitting:



There are so many patterns in this historical booklet, with fold-out templates for re-creating them! This one shows a beaded purse (knitted or crocheted or embroidered) of the type that was made in early 1900. I have a very small collection of these purses, as well as some original purse clasps that I found at an open air antique flea market one year, so I could use this pattern to make one for myself! I think that I'll need to do a whole blog entry on this subject sometime...



My first thought was to use some of these graphs to make stranded knitting design mittens. One of my favorites is this Oak Leaf:



It's fun and inspiring to plan new adventures in knitting for the turn of the year, even in the midst of Christmas. Currently on my needles, for after-holiday projects:

1. A helmet hat out Noro Kochoran (very soft with the bit of angora in the yarn!)
2. Ribbed play-school pants in BMFA STR Spike
3. A raglan-sleeved cardigan with a patterned yoke (DROPS pattern). I'm doing this in a nice teddy-bear brown with yellow snowflakes.

These should keep me busy for a little while.

I hope you all have a joyous Christmas Eve, if you celebrate the holiday, and if you don't, may your evening be magically peaceful and full of promise.

It's beginning to look....

a lot like Christmas....

Snow is in the air... fat flakes that drift on the stiff wind past my window in great updrafts and swirls through the courtyard of these old brick buildings. I wish that I could show you, but I left my phone camera on the sofa-side table this morning. We'll have to make do with artificial snow and the prettiest I've found is on the vintage bottle-brush trees that are scattered throughout everyone's decorations this year...



I remember these trees from my childhood - my grandmother always put up little scenarios that involved plastic and plaster deer, wax candle snowmen with black top hats and choir boys and girls singing from big books, all posed around a forest of bottle-brush trees in various colours...



I like them plain, and I like them with the white snow painted on their branch-tips, but I love them decorated with the wee tiny bulbs, pompoms, and festoons:





a search for 'bottle brush Christmas trees' will bring you to a seemingly endless collection of shops that sell these (and other ) vintage Holiday decorations - shops on Etsy and other more commercial sites!

But my favorite discovery this morning was a blog - The Adventures of Bluegirl - where I found not only the most adorable bottle brush wreath of all time, but some pretty stunning step by step directions for making it!

Recipe - Chocolate Dipped Pretzels

I'm back as promised with a picture of my chocolate-dipped pretzels. I'm bringing them to a holiday party today, so I hope they are enjoyed!

I found this treat box in the Rite Aid Drug Store - the perfect size to make these into a gift!



I'll repeat the recipe here, too, so that it's easy to find later...



Chocolate Dipped Pretzels

You need baking chocolate (I use dark chocolate - bittersweet), salted pretzel rods, and a variety of sprinkles.

Melt the chocolate and don't over-heat it or it will clump.

Roll the top half of the pretzel rod in the melted chocolate

Then, roll it in various sprinkles. I am using chocolate jimmies (because you can never have enough chocolate), gold flakes, and chopped blanched almonds (I love almonds!).

Carefully set them on wax paper or parchment paper to firm up. Some people put them in the refrigerator. Store them loosely, 3 at a time, in plastic or cellophane bags, tied with pretty ribbon.

The Last Christmas Present

I stayed up until 1 am last night to put the finishing stitches into the Oslo Walk Shawl for my bf's mother. We're having Christmas with them early, so everything needed to be finished, and this was the last WIP! Two weeks ago, I couldn't imagine that I would be able to get the knitting done, and now it is...



My skein was silk and cashmere, soft, thin, and easy to work with. I had to tink a few stitches and it wasn't unduly "sticky" when undo-ing the lace.

Here it is, folded in half because it is so long it drapes over both ends of the guest bed I blocked it on:



I use a striped towel for blocking, so that I can take advantage of those straight stripes to line up the edges of knitted pieces.



The lace itself fooled me when I was in the middle of it. It was so scrunched together, I thought it looked nothing like the pattern photo and was so surprised when I blocked it out, that I could actually see the lace work there! The pattern goes very quickly, because the lace itself is only 34 rows long.



The neck edge pattern, the colonnade - looking one, is about half as wide as it is supposed to be. This section is made with short rows, and knits up relatively quickly too because of that. Even so, by 1 am I was so tired that I was falling asleep over my needles, so I worked the pattern to row 29 (of the 49 specified) and then knit 4 rows of garter stitch before binding off.



So, it will be more of a scarf than a shawl, but it is still wide enough to cover the shoulders in a drafty cathedral - a setting that my bf's mother frequents. She can wind it around her neck, or throw it over her shoulders, or drape it around her coat collar.



I hope she'll like it.

Little Guy's Little Owl

What is it about owls? I just love them (especially barn owls!) and have this thing about incorporating them into knitting. I remember visiting all those rescued owls over the years at our local Audubon society and how we would be fascinated by their funny antics (dancing on their perch branches!) and wild ways.

Well this owl is a little more tame - a Christmas stocking with the owl graph from Spilly Jane Knits' owl socks used as the motif. I have several of her patterns, but haven't (until now) dared to try them!

I devised the actual stocking myself with a cast on of 48 stitches on size 8 DPNs (cuff down with a short row heel). The yarn is Jared Flood's new SHELTER pure wool. It's quite wonderful to work with on patterns like this and gets softer as you use it.



My stranded knitting on this Christmas stocking is obviously not perfect, but I learned a lot about stranded knitting by working on this over the past month - like how to carry the yarn invisibly across the back so I didn't have long "floats". I'm now inspired to try many more stranded patterns - like those beautiful Latvian mittens!

Back on the Needles

I'm knitting again - Yay! And I have a few presents for people who don't read my blog that I can show...

This hat is a variation of my top down one-skein hat. The yarn is Swan Island Worsted in Natural Grey and Robin's Egg Blue (a bit that was left over from my Mr. Woodhouse's Scarf). I improvised a Greek Key design around the brim (it's easy) in stranded knitting. I confess I did have to sketch it out at first and then after the first try, I frogged it and made it shorter.



The design is a little odd, because to get the visual effect I wanted, it's not symmetrical. It's 4 stitches high, but on the downward bar its 4 stitches across and on the upward bar its only 3 stitches across. Odd, but I like it a lot. And besides, 4, 3, and 7 are magical numbers so this will be a lucky hat for its recipient!

The other Finished Object is a hooded sweater for the little guy. I do have other sweaters planned for him, but this was quick and fast and I needed that right now - and he needs sweaters!! The sweaters I made for him a few months ago are now two inches up his arm! He's growing so fast, the little deer. (Hmmm.... maybe I should make a deer sweater....)

I'm calling this the Jungle Sweater because it features some incredible handmade buttons that my friend Marky in Australia sent to me:





I have one button from the series left, that I'm saving for another design that's percolating in my little brain.

Currently on the needles is a silk and cashmere neck scarf for my bf's mother: the Oslo Walk Shawl from the recent Winter Interweave Knits. The yarn is a skein I got at the Sheep and Wool fair two years ago specifically for her. My plan was to use it with Ball & Skein's Beach Glass Shawl, but now I don't have time.



The Oslo Walk Shawl is going very quickly, especially since I put lace stitchmarkers at every pattern repeat of 16 stitches. I'll move them when I get to the next section and the pattern repeat changes, but they are definitely a life-saver for this pattern!


picture from Interweave Knits - used for review purposes

Today was meant to be a good day to stay in and finish these projects, but we didn't' get the expected snow. It's spitting cold rain just a tiny bit, so the bf and I are going out to breakfast. After that I hope to do a little Christmas treat creating. This is one of the things I'm making:

Chocolate Dipped Pretzels

You need baking chocolate (I use dark chocolate - bittersweet), salted pretzel rods, and a variety of sprinkles.

Melt the chocolate and don't over-heat it or it will clump.

Roll the top half of the pretzel rod in the melted chocolate

Then, roll it in various sprinkles. I am using chocolate jimmies (because you can never have enough chocolate), gold flakes, and chopped blanched almonds (I love almonds!).

Carefully set them on wax paper or parchment paper to firm up. Some people put them in the refrigerator. Store them loosely, 3 at a time, in plastic or cellophane bags, tied with pretty ribbon.

I'll come back with a photo of these if they turn out at all. Time for some happy holiday cooking!

I wish I had a river...

It's coming on Christmas
They're cutting down trees
They're putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
Oh I wish I had a river I could skate away on

Oh I wish I had a river so long
I would teach my feet to fly
Oh I wish I had a river I could skate away on

LISTEN TO THE SONG HERE


December is always a very mixed month for me. On the one hand, I get to indulge my very favorite winter activities: choosing and giving presents and roasting and eating hot salted chestnuts... and on the other hand, I get to remember daily my loved one's excruciating December death, which is an activity rather like having your heart scooped out of your living chest with a very dull spoon. Not surprisingly, my creative endeavors have stalled. I try very hard each year to get everything finished before December begins because of this mind-and-body-numbing emotional fugue, but some years I fail and this is one of them.

With four projects on the needles and two not even started yet, I think my gift giving might be somewhat truncated. I have one project that I've knitted and frogged four days in a row already and I just can't see torturing that lovely silk yarn any more.

I have been very interested in cooking, though. My plan is to make one Holiday cooking project each weekend. I'll share one of my favorite recipes with you if you like. This is my own creation - meringues shaped like mushrooms! (or toadstools, really):



This is the famous $75 Voges chocolate toadstool. We wont' be making chocolate toadstools, but this is what they will look like, so you can use this picture as a template.

For the meringue, use 3 egg whites, 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar, a pinch of salt, and 3/4 cup of sugar.

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar and salt (I use a rotary hand egg beater) until foamy. Gradually add the sugar, two tablespoons at a time and beat until rather firm peaks form. One time, one of my friends said that he always turned the bowl upside down to make sure that the peaks were firm, but unfortunately, that time - as he showed this off to me - the entire bowlful of stiff meringue slid out of his bowl onto the floor. So I don't recommend this methods. Just sort of 'notice' when the peaks are firm - maybe by observing if they hold their shape when you lift the beater out of the bowl.

Gently spoon some of the meringue into a gallon size zip-lock bag and close the bag. Cut one lower corner diagonally, to form a hole that is about the diameter of a pencil.

Using this innovative "instant pastry bag", squeeze a round of meringue onto the parchment by going around and around in a circle until you have the size and shape of your mushroom cap. Make the same number of "stems" by squeezing the meringue into the shape of a narrow Hershey's Kiss.

Bake the shapes for one hour. Don't let them brown - you may need to take them out of the oven before one hour is up.

To assemble your toadstools, place a small amount of white tube frosting on the tip of the stem, and gently press this into the underside of the Toadstool cap. Using a paintbrush and red food colouring, paint small red dots all around the top. Set out for a bit to dry. These will keep pretty well in an airtight container, but are fragile, so don't crowd them together. They make lovely decorations for the top of the Christmas cake or Yule log, too.

We don't get much light here in December. The sun is low, the sky is heavy with grey snow-bearing clouds, and the sun sets in the mid-afternoon. But cooking is a very cheering occupation, and really does brighten up the day.

Not for Christmas

I don't have much to report on this first Sunday of Advent, except that I've finished another pair of Veylas and a small cap to go with it. They were made on request and what a fun and fast knit! These were made with Indigo Moon sock yarn, in Midnight (black).



The buttons are vintage glass from a closed Czechoslovakian button factory, so they're what antique dealers call "old stock" - never used stock from an old store. I'm not sure how the photos will show them, as they have both brown and black swirling through the glass.



In other news, we had our first snow (a little flurry) and the world is cold and stark, suddenly, without warning. I'm almost prepared for winter, so its fairly cosy here and a fire in the fireplace with a cup of mulled cider or spiced tea is just what I need!